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Confessions of a Milkman. Timothy Lea
Читать онлайн.Название Confessions of a Milkman
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007516032
Автор произведения Timothy Lea
Жанр Классическая проза
Издательство HarperCollins
I listen to the silence and then pull the bedclothes about me. What a bleeding nasty dream. If there are going to be any more like that I don’t fancy going back to kip. Just to be on the safe side I check that the old action man kit is still joined to the rest of me. Phew! What a relief. You never quite know with dreams, do you? Maybe it – no. For a moment I had hoped that it might have retained some of the lustrous promise of the harem but it seems very ordinary at the moment. Very, very ordinary. Still, better to have it intact and in working order than miniaturized by my brother-in-law’s scimitar. Funny him turning up like that. It is probably very symbolic. I believe that Clement Freud has done a lot of work in this area when not flogging dog food for the Liberal Party. He says that everything you dream has a meaning. I wonder what meaning having your hampton cut off by your brother-in-law has? Probably not a very nice one. I suppose I could write to Mr Freud about it but it does seem a bit delicate and the Liberals have enough problems of that kind as it is, don’t they? Better to save the cost of the postage stamp and buy a controlling interest in British Leyland.
It is funny about the milk though. I mean, coming so soon after my interview at the depot. I suppose I must be keyed up at the thought of going out on the rounds with Mr Glossop. Two weeks with him, a week’s course, and I could have my own float. A steady income, regular hours and virtually your own boss. It can’t be bad, can it? And no Sid. I have been tagging along under his thumb for too long. All his crackpot schemes have got me nowhere. I have been exploited. I feel myself going hot under the pyjama collar and take a couple of long, deep breaths. Cool it, Lea. Sid is not going to like it but there is nothing he can do. If you want to be a milkman that is your decision.
Cupping my hands round my goolies just in case Sid and his scimitar are within swinging distance, I prepare myself for the big day.
CHAPTER TWO
‘You can imagine how I feel,’ says Fred Glossop. ‘Twenty years, that’s a long time.’
I rub my hands together and nod. I know how I feel: bleeding parky. And we have only just left the depot. Still, it is only six o’clock and it must get warmer – lighter, too.
‘Are you tired, lad?’
I swallow my yawn and try and look like I am just waiting to come out the traps at Harringay. ‘I didn’t sleep very well last night. I was a bit keyed up. You know what it’s, like when you want to be certain to wake up. You always wake up an hour earlier.’
Fred nods, showing neither interest nor sympathy. ‘If you can’t get yourself up in the morning you might as well forget about the job. I’ve never found it a problem myself.’
Fred Glossop must be about sixty and looks as if he has never heard anything but bad news all his life. You only have to start a sentence and he is nodding pessimistically before you have got further than ‘it’s a pity—’.
‘It’s going to be a bit of a problem when you retire,’ I say, listening to the whine of the float as we whirr past the lines of parked cars.
‘Oh no, not at all,’ says Fred – he disagrees with everything you say, as well. ‘I’ve always been able to amuse myself. My mind’s always on the go. That’s vital when you work by yourself. If you haven’t got an active mind you might as well forget it.’
‘Um, yes,’ I say. ‘This thing easy to drive, is it?’
An expression almost of horror arrives on Fred’s face. ‘You’re not going to drive it,’ he says looking towards the pavement as if hoping to find someone to share his amazement with. ‘Not yet. These are specialized vehicles, you know.’
‘It’s only a bloody great battery, isn’t it?’ I say, beginnig to feel a bit choked. ‘I don’t want to enter it for a Grand Prix.’
When you arrive at the depot in the morning all the battery-operated floats are on charge. The leads stretch away like mechanical milkers fastened to a cow’s udder. It is all very symbolic.
‘There’s no need for that tone,’ reprimands Fred. ‘After twenty years I ought to know the regulations. We’ll put you through your paces at the depot. You could be cut to pieces out here – look at that one!’ A car pulls out of the line in front of us without giving a signal and I catch a glimpse of a dry-faced man using an electric shaver with one hand while he drives with the other.
‘Off to the office?’ I say.
‘Or home,’ says Fred making a ‘tch, tch’ noise. ‘There’s a lot of it goes on round here. People’s moral values seem to have plummeted.’
‘You must have seen a lot of changes,’ I say. This remark is always guaranteed to give any boring old fart over the age of thirty-five enough to talk about for the rest of his life and Fred Glossop is no exception.
‘There’s no comparison,’ he says. ‘There’s not many of the old ones left. All these people coming in from outside have changed the whole character of the community. Look at that. Wire baskets of flowers hanging in the porch. I ask you! Of course, the kids from the Alderman Wickham Estate come and nick them.’ A certain grim satisfaction enters his voice and then fades quickly. ‘Still, they’re horrible little baskets themselves. Where are you from?’
I am not quite certain I care for the way he moves smoothly from talk of ‘horrible little baskets’ to an enquiry after my place of residence but I let the matter pass. ‘Scraggs Lane,’ I say.
‘Oh.’ Glossop sounds surprised. ‘You’re local then.’ His tone warms on learning that I am not a light-skinned Jamaican. ‘That hasn’t changed much, has it? Apart from the bits they’ve pulled down.